California Scheming

Abortion is just one of a series of issues where Lungren is potentially at odds with moderate voters this year. He knows that, much as he would like to, he can't readily conform 1998 California to the moral certitudes of his youth. He knows that it's chiefly on the issue of violent crime that his code and the code of state voters are as one. That's why he'll hammer on crime over the next three weeks. How else can he close the gap with Gray Davis? How else can he hark back to the Long Beach of the '50s, to the world of Bixby Knolls?